"On Friday (Jan 21) we removed from their posts five third- echelon officials in the finance ministry suspected of involvement in the Gayus case," he said after attending a limited coordination meeting on legal issues at the office of the vice president here on Monday.
Agus said the officials were believed to be involved in the case and had been immediately removed from their posts and examined by the ministry`s inspectorate general.
He said the officials had been given administrative sanctions since Friday. "They are an addition to the number of tax officials who were discharged in the period March-June 2010 when the Gayus case first broke," he said.
Asked if former director general of taxation Mochamad Tjiptardjo was one of them, Agus said he was not. "The director general was not one of them. He is one of the first-echelon officials subject to our reform program," he said.
He said there had indeed been replacements of first-echelon officials over the weekend including Mochamad Tjiptardjo by Fuad Rahmany.
"So we will give time to the new director general to conduct consolidation so that he can make plans and programs to be carried out," he said.(*)
Editor: Aditia Maruli Radja
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